In contact sports, such as lacrosse or hockey, where sticks are essential elements of the game, a player's hands, including their fingers and thumb, and wrists are especially vulnerable to injury when being checked by another player's stick. For this reason, players typically utilize padded gloves to protect their hands, wrists and lower forearms during play.
Typical gloves for such contact sports generally include a hand portion coupled to a plurality of finger portions and a thumb portion. The hand portion, the finger portions, and the thumb portion each have a respective palm portion and a protective back with a plurality of protective portions such as pads, disposed thereon to provide protection to a wearer's hand from forces applied thereto during play. The gloves also may have a protective cuff or portion that is coupled to a lower edge of the hand portion and extends downwardly from the back portion to protect the wearer's wrist and forearm. The protective back portions of the hand portion, the plurality of finger portions and the thumb portion are formed in such a way so as to allow them to flex during play in a manner corresponding to a wearer's hand, finger or thumb without significantly impacting the protection provided thereto.
One issue with gloves of this type is the degree of protection from impact provided to the wearer during usage. Foam padding or other protective structures on the outer portions of the gloves generally provide an adequate amount of relief from impact due to a stick, ball or puck. The amount of protection depends primarily upon the thickness and composition of the padding as well as the angle of impact of the device contacting the glove. In order to provide flexibility to the wearer's fingers, gloves are typically provided with flex or break lines between adjacent pads that are located over the respective knuckles of the fingers and thumb to accommodate increased movement of the wearer's fingers and thumb. Flex or break lines are also provided in the back of the hand for increased flexibility such that a glove is allowed to accommodate movement of a wearer's hand.
While these gloves have increased protection, it is known that to provide the desired flexibility, flex or break lines are provided in the glove. Thus, when a wearer flexes his fingers around the stick or otherwise flexes that hand, a gap is created between the adjacent pads in the area of the knuckles and exposes the knuckle making it particularly vulnerable to impact from a stick, ball or puck. Such impact can result in a serious injury to a wearer's fingers or thumb. Thus, there exists a need for a protective sports glove that provides protection to the knuckles or other exposed areas of a player's hand during usage, regardless of the amount of flex of the fingers or thumb, yet does not affect the degree of flex of the fingers or thumb during that same usage.